Heretofore, considerable effort has been expended to provide food products such as frozen or refrigerated pizzas and sandwiches for preparation by a consumer, utilizing conventional gas or electric heated ovens. More recently, with the increasing popularity of microwave ovens, attention has turned to providing consumers with kits and components for preparing dough-containing products such as frozen or refrigerated pizzas and sandwiches.
Often food products that are to be heated in a microwave oven are in a frozen state prior to heating. On the one hand, providing the food products in a frozen state can extend the shelf life of the food products. For instance, a conventional farinaceous or bread-based food product stored at room temperature may have a shelf life of about seven days or less. Such a short shelf life disadvantageously limits the distribution of such food products. Providing refrigerated storage can increase the shelf life, but often results in stale product. On the other hand, providing the food products in a frozen state can disadvantageously result in inadequate moisture control during heating in a microwave oven. For instance, when two different food products are simultaneously heated in a microwave oven from a frozen state, the food products may heat at different rates. When one of the food products is a farinaceous or bread-based food product, that food product may heat from the frozen state comparatively faster than the other food product. The result can be an overheated farinaceous or bread-based food product that is dry and hard compared to its fresh state. Another disadvantage of providing frozen food products is that the time required to heat the food products can in some instances be longer than from a refrigerated state.
Moreover, and as has been detailed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,416,304, microwave ovens exhibit their own unique challenges when preparing food products. For example, microwave ovens may exhibit substantial temperature gradients or non-uniform heating. In addition, frozen bread-based food products can exhibit a nonuniform temperature response to microwave radiation throughout their volume, during a typical heating cycle. As a result, portions of the food item melt or thaw before other portions and this results in localized accelerated heating due to the preferential absorption of microwave energy by liquids being irradiated. As a result of these and other conditions, further improvements in the preparation and packaging of dough-containing food products are being sought.